| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: thousand francs at least. I meditate an advertisement which shall
begin, 'Down with wigs!'--the effect will be prodigious. You have
never found out my wakefulness, Madame! For three months the success
of Macassar Oil has kept me from sleeping. I am resolved to take the
shine out of Macassar!"
"So these are the fine projects you've been rolling in your noddle for
two months without choosing to tell me? I have just seen myself
begging at my own door,--a warning from heaven! Before long we shall
have nothing left but our eyes to weep with. Never while I live shall
you do it; do you hear me, Cesar? Underneath all this there is some
plot which you don't perceive; you are too upright and loyal to
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Charmides and Other Poems by Oscar Wilde: Nor much with Science do I care to climb,
Although by strange and subtle witchery
She drew the moon from heaven: the Muse Time
Unrolls her gorgeous-coloured tapestry
To no less eager eyes; often indeed
In the great epic of Polymnia's scroll I love to read
How Asia sent her myriad hosts to war
Against a little town, and panoplied
In gilded mail with jewelled scimitar,
White-shielded, purple-crested, rode the Mede
Between the waving poplars and the sea
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from When the Sleeper Wakes by H. G. Wells: bridges, footways, aerial motor rails, and trapeze and
cable leaps. And here more than anywhere the note
of vehement vitality, of uncontrollable, hasty activity.
rose high. Everywhere was violent advertisement,
until his brain swam at the tumult of light and colour.
And Babble Machines of a peculiarly rancid tone were
abundant and filled the air with strenuous squealing
and an idiotic slang. "Skin your eyes and slide,"
"Gewhoop, Bonanza," "Gollipers come and hark!"
The place seemed to him to be dense with people
either profoundly agitated or swelling with obscure
When the Sleeper Wakes |
